


Happy Birthday, April 1983.

by macrossfan89



Series: Stolen and Forced Paths [2]
Category: Daria (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-23
Updated: 2016-06-23
Packaged: 2018-07-16 19:44:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7282153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/macrossfan89/pseuds/macrossfan89
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Morgendorffers have tried to move on since the loss of their first born child, and have even had another daughter. But even now as they celebrate her first birthday, they can't forget the little girl who should be celebrating with them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Happy Birthday, April 1983.

“Happy Birthday to you,”

“Happy Birthday to you,”

“Happy Birthday dear Quinn, Happy Birthday to you,” sang the gathered group in the small living room of the Alexandria VA second floor apartment. A chubby little baby girl with a mop of orange hair giggled and squirmed in her mother’s lap as her father carried a chocolate cake with a big number one shaped candle blazing on the top. Bowing down he presented it to the little girl who, instead of trying to blow out candle, as no one would honestly expect a one-year-old to actually do, made to grab the flickering flame. 

“Sweetie no! Cried her mother, who promptly pulled her chubby little arm away, lest she burn her finger. This elicited a grumpy pout from the little girl. Deciding to keep things moving, her father went ahead and blew out the candle for her. Everyone began to clap shout praises as though Quinn had done it herself and her father retreated back to the kitchen with his mother to begin cutting up the cake.

The two made small talk for few minutes before the man’s sister walked in holding her hand against a large pregnant belly.

“Jake is there anymore cranberry juice left? For some reason I feel like I could drink a drum of the damned stuff.” She said to the man before leaning against the kitchen table.

“Sure thing Sarah, go ahead pull up a stool by the breakfast bar and I’ll pour you a glass,” said Jake handing the knife to his mother Ruth so she could finish slicing the cake. He walked over to the fridge and pulled out a juice bottle and a carton of vanilla ice-cream while he was there.

As he filled his sister’s glass up he looked down her swollen belly and smiled wistfully. “So have you and Ben decided any names yet?”

After downing the entire glass in a few seconds and letting out a satisfied sigh she grinned widely. “Well we’re still stuck for boys names, but we’ve narrow it down to either, Rebecca after Ben’s mother or Ingrid after Omi Bechtold if it’s a girl.”

“Oh those both sound just darling sweetie don’t you think so Jakey? Jakey?” Asked Ruth twice until she realized her son wasn’t answering, so she turned back and noticed him hunched over the counter with his back to them shaking, his breath shuttering. 

“Oh Jakey no,” said Ruth softly as she hurried over and pulled him into tight hug. Sarah joined in just as Jake began softly crying into his mother’s hair.

“This isn’t how it’s supposed to be mom, it isn’t.”

“What isn’t sweetie,” said Ruth as she patted Jake’s back trying to sooth while she and Sarah led Jake out through the sliding glass door out to the apartment’s terrace to sit down in the glow of the setting sun.

“She should be here with us. She should have been here a year-and-a-half-ago to. But she isn’t because of me” He half sobbed half screamed while he leaned over the terrace railing.

“Jake that’s not true,” Sarah said as she slid the glass door closed, not wanting the other people in the apartment to see Jake. The old protective instincts toward her little brother borne from their less than happy childhood never really went away.

“Yes it is!” He cried. “I’m the one who handed my baby to some stranger without asking any real questions. I could have done something more,” he sobbed as his mother held him and rubbed his back.

“Jakey you and Helen had just gone through one of the most tiring experiences anyone can go through, anyone would have listen to who they thought was a qualified medical professional. It wasn’t your fault.”

“Mom’s Right Jake. You can’t keep blaming yourself for this, it’s killing you. It’s not good for you, it’s not good for Helen, and it’s most certainly not good for Quinn. They both need you more than you can imagine.”

Jake took a deep breath then slowly straightened up from the railing. “I know that Sarah, I know that. It’s just that ever since last summer when the liaison from the FBI called and told me they weren’t actively investigating anymore, I’ve just felt so lost. In the Beginning they made it seem like they’d find her in no time at all. Now, I just don’t know how to keep going now that they’re not even really looking for her.”

Ruth nodded her head sadly, remembering that rainy day in August when her son had called with the bad news. Even now she could still feel the figurative knife twisting in her heart at hearing her little boy weep hopelessly over the phone as he belayed the sad news. “I know sweetie. I wish I could tell you that it’s going to get better, but I just don’t know. All I can say is that you just have to keep going, keep living each day as best you can until you feel alive again.”

“I’m trying mom I swear. But every day it just seems to get harder. For god sake we’ve had to change our number three times because of all the crazies calling us with tips about where she is. At first they gave us hope each time they called.Now they’re just torture. For Christ’s sake one called last week to say she was taken by a satanic cult to be sacrificed as a bride to the Devil. I mean what the hell am I supposed to say that kind of thing?”

Ruth closed her eyes shaking her head as the sudden urge to strangle whoever made that disgusting call came over her. 

“Jakey I know that you’re doing your best in a terrible situation, my goodness your father wouldn’t have handled this half as well as you have,” she said with a sad and bitter breath.

Jake looked up at his mother in shock. Never, not once in his thirty-four years on earth could he remember his mother not describing his father in reverent tones. Nathaniel “Mad Dog Morgendorffer,” had always been put on a pedestal by Ruth, in life and in death.

“Mom what do you mean?”

The fifty-five year-old suddenly looked twenty years older at that moment. “What I mean is, your father would have never been able to consider blaming himself if the same thing happened to us. He could never admit fault. Or ask for help. He would just blame everyone else and let the pain rot at his soul. You have so much more strength than he could ever possess. But more importantly Quinn and Helen will never have to reassure themselves that you love them. You’ll prove it every day by the way treat them,” the last part was said with a tired sob. 

Sarah folded her arms across her pregnant belly and let out sigh in remembrance of her own late father and how hard it could sometimes be to love him. She knew her little brother’s daughter would have a much happier childhood then she did, and for that she was incredibly grateful.

Feeling another burst of big sister protectiveness Sarah walked over and pulled Jake into a bone crushing hug, this was exacerbated by the baby in her stomach which was currently pressing very hard against its uncle’s ribs. 

“Jake, I don’t know if this will help, but you have to have faith that she’ll come back to you one day. I do. I don’t know if its mother’s intuition or just the hormones talking, but I know she isn’t lost to us forever. I know we’ll find her again somehow I just have to believe that.”

Jake returned his sister’s embrace with great enthusiasm. “I hope you’re right Sarah, I pray you’re right. If only I could know that she’s ok. That she’s somewhere where she’s loved and safe. I might even be able to live the rest of my life never seeing her again if I only knew that for sure.”

A few minutes later three left the terrace and returned to the party. Jake upon entering the living room made a beeline for Quinn, and proceeded to pick up the little redheaded baby and give her a fierce hug and kiss on the head. This instigated a fit of giggles from the squirming babe as her grandmother and aunt looked on with sad smiles. Neither of the women heard Jake when he whispered softly into his daughter’s ear, “Daddy will never let you go, I promise.”

 

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

About seven hundred miles northwest of Alexandria, in the little town of Hamlin, a toddler with a mess of Auburn baby curls wobbled on her chubby legs down an old dock on the shore of Lake Ontario. The evening sky awash in pink and orange as the sun dipped below the chilly April waters. Her tiny feet soft against the storm worn planks as she got dangerously close to dock’s edge. In the distance she could hear the big people’s laughter and singing by the bonfire. When she was about three feet from the precipice she heard a frantic cry.

“DARIA!! Stop!!” 

The little girl spun around and smiled when she saw her mother running towards her and gave a little wave of her hand. As the woman closed the distance the little girl started to frown once she saw the horrified look on her face.  
In an instant she was ripped from the ground and pressed against the woman’s chest in a tight hug. “Don’t do that. Don’t ever do that to me again please God don’t.” The woman sobbed into the little girl’s auburn curls. Her own long wheat blonde hair draping over her daughter's cheeks. 

“Mommy, why are you crying?” She asked as her mother finally pulled back ever so slightly and began checking the toddler’s face and arms for sign of hurts.

The woman managed a relieved smile at finding her little girl to be unharmed. “Mommy was just scared sweetie. She didn’t know where you were. When I saw on the docks I thought I was going to lose you again. And I just couldn’t bare that.” She said crying tears of fear and relief. 

Daria frowned for a moment, then looked at her mother and said, “You didn’t lose me, Mommy, I’m right here.”  
Her mother’s face suddenly paled and for the tiniest of moments she looked over her shoulder at the woods surrounding the old farmhouse that served as the commune’s home before she turned back and with a forced smile said, “Mommy was just being silly. Of course we didn’t lose you. Mommy would never let anything happen to her beautiful little girl. Never ever.”

After moment or two her mother calmed down and smiled wide as she picked her up and began the trek back into the yard. “Come on sweetie everyone else is at the bonfire. If you ask nicely Daddy will roast you a marshmallow. Doesn’t that sound yummy?”

“I don’t know. Will you and Daddy read to me before I go to sleep?” She asked already a little tired.

Her mother smiled. “Of course sweetie. Do you remember where we stopped last Night?

“Dorothy and her friends met the Lion!” she excitedly said.

“That’s right baby, and if you want Daddy can do the lion’s roar again.” She said with a grin.

“Yes I want Daddy to roar, he sounds silly,” she said with a giggle.

“Whatever you want sweetie, whatever you want.”

As the two headed towards the bonfire to join in the evening’s festivities, the woman once again looked back in the direction of the woods. In her mind visions of a little mound of quartz rocks haunted her for a moment. Her distress vanished as a tall older man with greying auburn hair and a matching beard called out to her.

“Summer. Is she alright?”

She smiled softly. “Yes David she’s fine. Our Beautiful little girl is just fine.”

**Author's Note:**

> Well that's the second installment of the series. The Morgendorffers are making it as best they can at the moment, or at least Jake is. I've got plans to show how Helen is dealing with all this so don't worry about that. As for Daria..... Well you'll all be seeing more of her soon enough as I'm hoping to show her meeting her "mother's" extended family real soon. Maybe show exactly why Jane and Trent were the only members of their branch of the family tree to attend that reunion.


End file.
